Digital content from: Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA), no. 24, Sligo Authorsa: Fión Gallagher and Marie-Louise Legg Editors: Anngret Simms, H.B. Clarke, Raymond Gillespie, Jacinta Prunty Consultant editor: J.H. Andrews Cartographic editor: Sarah Gearty Editorial a ssistants: Angela Murphy, Jennnifer Moore Printed and published in 2012 by the Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2 Maps prepared in association with the Ordnance Survey Ireland and Land and Property Services Northern Ireland The contents of this digital edition of Irish Historic Towns Atlas no. 24, Sligo, is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License. Referencing the digital edition Please ensure that you acknowledge this resource, crediting this pdf following this example: Topographical information. In Fióna Gallagher and Marie-Louise Legg, Irish Historic Towns Atlas, no. 24, Sligo. Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 2012 (www.ihta.ie, accessed 4 February 2016), pp 1–27. Acknowledgements (digital edition) Digitisation: Eneclann Ltd Digital editor: Anne Rosenbusch Original copyright: Royal Irish Academy Irish Historic Towns Atlas Digital Working Group: Sarah Gearty, Keith Lilley, Jennifer Moore, Rachel Murphy, Paul Walsh, Jacinta Prunty Digital Repository of Ireland: Rebecca Grant Royal Irish Academy IT Department: Wayne Aherne, Derek Cosgrave For further information, please visit www.ihta.ie View of Sligo, looking south, 1831 (Baynes) SLIGO Between the Atlantic bays of Donegal and Killala lies Co. Sligo. Along fifteenth century, with the addition of a cloister garth and other buildings. the ancient routeway between Ulster and Connacht, its county town, Sligo, is There is no mention of a parish church in the papal taxation roll of 1306, but located on the only fordable site where the Garvoge River drains Lough Gill it has been suggested that St John’s was founded soon afterwards. A proposal into Sligo Bay. Highly seasonal, the river can be a trickle during a dry period, in 1427 to build ‘a hospital and chapel of St Mary the Virgin and St John but will quickly turn into a deep, fast-flowing torrent following heavy rain. the Baptist’ may imply that both hospital and church had been destroyed, Sligo is situated at the geological junction where the schists and gneisses perhaps as early as 1315.4 It is possible that thereafter all religious activity of the Ox Mountains meet the spectacular Carboniferous limestone scarp- revolved around the Dominican priory. lands of the Dartry range, culminating in the iconic prow of Ben Bulben The repeated destruction and reconstruction of Sligo Castle is symptomatic (527 m).1 These uplands, occasionally pierced by deep glacial valleys, cut of the fact that its possession was contested between various Gaelic and off the fertile limestone coastal plain north and west of the town from the Anglo-Norman families. Following a period of dispute between two Anglo- interior of the county. The lowlands and shallow bays attracted settlement Norman families, the castle was handed over to Richard de Burgo; he from Neolithic times. Archaeological excavations have uncovered middens also obtained the manor of Sligo in 1299 as part of a settlement with the of shells, which may account for the town’s name Sligigh or Sligeach — the Fitzgeralds, who then left Sligo for good.5 The castle was substantially shelly place. rebuilt by de Burgo, then lord of Connacht, and may have incorporated Sligo lies in a hollow, dominated by steep hills and ridges to the north remnants of the earlier one built by Maurice Fitzgerald. The location of and south of the Garvoge River, with the result that all roads descend into successive castles at Sligo was a small rise overlooking the harbour, bridge it. Consequently, it controlled communications between Connacht and and town in what is now Quay Street, on the site of the nineteenth-century Ulster and was often a contested site in medieval and early modern times. Town Hall. After the capture of the castle and the plundering of the town The topography led to the development of a linear street pattern, running by Ruaidrí Ó Conchobair and following the Bruce invasion of Ireland in east–west along the river, which makes a right-angled bend before entering 1315–18, Sligo came under the lordship of the O’Connors and ceased to be the tidal estuary (Map 1). To a lesser extent, Sligo also controlled the route an Anglo-Norman outpost. southwards through the Collooney Gap, along the Unshin and Owenmore rivers into Roscommon, the home of the Gaelic O’Connor chieftains. * * * Sligo’s strategic location, between the territories of the great dynasties of * * * the O’Connors of Connacht and the O’Donnells of Tír Conaill, led to a long There are possible indications of a small settlement at the crossing point period of warfare for control of the bridgehead defended by the castle. The on the Garvoge River: a bridge, possibly of wood, is mentioned in 1188 O’Connors and the O’Donnells spent much of the next century competing and again in 1236 when it was burnt by the Anglo-Normans. There is no to gain and to maintain control over the bridgehead on the Garvoge, while evidence of substantial habitation, however, until the 1240s when the Anglo- the castle was refortified and changed hands on numerous occasions. By Norman baron Maurice Fitzgerald, a member of the Kildare Geraldines, the end of the fourteenth century the O’Connors emerged as keepers of constructed a castle in order to control the roads, the bridge and access from Sligo Castle. In 1395 Domhnall O’Connor is referred to as lord of Sligo and the sea. Fitzgerald had been granted large tracts of land in upper Connacht lower Connacht by the annalists.6 The struggle with Tír Conaill continued, after 1235 and his prime focus was to secure the crossing over the Garvoge however, and the town was burnt by Turlough O’Donnell in 1396, when and to encourage economic developmentIrish on his manorHistoric of Sligo. It is possible Townsits buildings, both of woodAtlas and of stone, were described as splendid.7 The that he replaced the existing wooden bridge with a stone one. Sligo Castle customs duties or ‘cocket’ of Sligo and northern Connacht were clearly immediately overlooked and secured the bridge, and the two were intimately substantial enough to fight for.8 connected. Fitzgerald used it as a base from which to attack the territory of As well as being a crucial site for the control of routeways, Sligo was the O’Donnells to the north in Tír Conaill.Royal A survey of the manor Irish in 1289 Academythe most significant port in north-west Ireland in the middle ages. The refers to 180 burgesses, indicative of a modest level of urban development. earliest reference to the port is in 1392, when a John Symock was licensed The importance of Sligo to the Anglo-Normans was economic as well as to carry ‘eight tuns of wine to Sligo’. The first quay, most likely along the defensive; it became the principal market place for goods produced in the sheltered basin just below the castle walls, was probably built by 1423 when north and the centre of the future county. A hospital, dedicated to the Trinity, custom duties were collected.9 In the fifteenth century the town experienced possibly on or near the site of the later church of St John the Baptist, is economic growth, mostly owing to the herring shoals off the coast and the mentioned in 1242. It may not have been completed since its ‘stone and lime’ salmon fishery. The fact that Sligo was a port of call for Bristol merchants were reused in the building of Sligo Castle. Earth and timber defences were is reflected in the popular rhyme: ‘Heryng of Slegothe and salmon of Bame constructed in the succeeding years, although no evidence has been found [Bann] heis made in Brystowe many a ryche man’.10 Sligo, like Galway, of their extent. It has been speculated that they were confined to the south was trading with the Continent and with merchants in Scotland and the west side of the river, with the later Dominican priory being outside them and country of England.11 Fishermen and traders brought for sale commodities perhaps stretching no further than the southern end of present-day Market such as cloths, hides and wine. Exported goods included herrings, honey, Street.2 The defences were burnt by O’Donnell in 1246, when he attacked fish, linen, salt and timber.12 Overland trade, however, was more difficult, the settlement but failed to take the castle. because isolation from routes towards Dublin and the disturbed state of the Fitzgerald founded a Dominican priory, dedicated to the Holy Cross locality limited the ability of merchants to sell goods or to expand their c. 1252, on the eastern edge of the town.3 Added to and extended over businesses. Some merchant families moved south from Ulster to Sligo to the following century, it became one of the focal points for Sligo. It was trade. The O’Crean family, originally from Donegal, were foremost among surrounded by ample lands for cultivation and the river was a vital source Sligo merchants in the fifteenth century and maintained their hegemony until of fish for the restricted diet of mendicant friars. This extensive religious the Williamite wars in the 1690s. Several other Irish families jostled for a precinct curtailed any eastward urban development until the early nineteenth share in the economic success: prosperity led to expansion and the building century. The priory was gutted by an accidental fire in 1414, but was restored of several stone tower houses along Castle Street.13 by Tighernán O’Rourke of Bréifne, at which time the prominent tower and a The townscape of medieval Sligo was dominated by the de Burgo castle rood screen were added.